Dentist paid for part-time work at CSN on top of full-time job at UNLV

The UNLV dentist who received nearly $500,000 in payments that a school lawyer deemed he didn’t deserve, also had a $72,000 a year contract with College of Southern Nevada for part-time work on top of his full-time UNLV job, records show.

Dr. George McAlpine received $460,000 in profit sharing between 2009 and 2017 even though a school legal opinion found his practice did not turn a profit, records show. During that time, UNLV paid him about $200,000 a year in salary, records show. And between 2010 and 2017, CSN paid McAlpine $72,747 a year for part-time work at the school, records show.

CSN ended McAlpine’s position with the school on June 2, 2017 — about a month earlier than the contract was supposed to expire. CSN spokesman Richard Lake declined to be interviewed about the payments, writing in an email that the “information in a personnel file is confidential and not public information.”

McAlpine declined comment when reached at his office and did not respond to a subsequent email.

“You can talk to our media people, but I have nothing to say,” he said.

UNLV spokeswoman Cindy Brown also declined comment, directing questions to CSN.

Two jobs

McAlpine’s contract with CSN shows it was for working just under half time, and CSN records show he was not required to fill out time cards.

But emails indicate the job might have been far less than 20 hours a week.

“Seems like if his schedule is to work here on Thursday, he should be here to make up the day,” Mary Kaye Bailey, vice president of finance and administration at CSN, wrote about McAlpine being out on annual leave on the day he was supposed to work at CSN.

Another email says he was supposed to come in on a Tuesday, but it was not clear if that was a regular work day.

During his CSN contract, McAlpine also had a full-time job at UNLV’s dental school that paid $216,000 plus benefits in 2016.

In total, McAlpine was paid $318,333 last year, $343,481.52 in 2017 and $389,111.25 in 2016 in salary, benefits and other payments like profit sharing and the CSN temporary job, Nevada System of Higher Education and UNLV data shows. That put McAlpine in the top 100 of better-compensated staffers out of 20,000 employees who worked at NSHE in each of the three past years with him coming in as the 35th highest paid in 2016, records show.

Last year, McAlpine was the second highest paid employee in the Dental school after Dean Karen West, who made $397,951 in salary and benefits last year, records show. West also directed questions to the UNLV public relations department.

Overpayment

UNLV overpaid McAlpine about $60,000 a year for nearly eight years in profit sharing that he did not deserve, a memo obtained by the Review-Journal in April shows.

“Under the terms of the agreement, Dr. McAlpine was not and is not entitled to any incentive payments; and instead, he should have been required to pay back the ‘unearned’ advance incentive pay of $60,000 a year,” Assistant General Counsel Debra Pieruschka wrote March 30, 2017. “Now, more than $460,000 in incentive over payments have been paid to Dr. McAlpine.”

Top UNLV staff received the memo more than two years ago, but McAlpine has not paid back any of that money, according to a UNLV response to an open records requests for any McAlpine repayments.

The school declined to discuss the payments, saying it was a confidential personnel issue despite government employee compensation in Nevada being public.

McAlpine told the newspaper in April that he deserved the money.

“It was that somebody was out to get me with this sort of thing,” he said. “It was erroneous and everything is settled.”

Contact Arthur Kane at akane@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ArthurMKane on Twitter.